Joyous Justice

View Original

Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 60: You Can’t Hire Your Way to Racial Justice

Sarah Freyd

QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie discuss the dangers of making that “diversity hire” when the organization hasn’t done the necessary work of deconstructing dynamics of oppression, so that “diversity hire” needs to endure unhealthy and unsustainable microaggressions and worse. They discuss strategies for how to avoid this and set up new colleagues for success.

All of our episodes have closed captioning.
Access the audio version of this episode here.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. April and Tracie discuss the impulse and urgency Jewish organizations have had around hiring People of Color to add racial diversity to their leadership and staff and how doing so can sometimes lead to tokenism and avoidable, very difficult situations. Have you seen this happen? Has this happened to you? How does April and Tracie’s perspective help you rethink such situations? 

  2. Thinking about this situation, when have you observed when it has been done sustainably and correctly? 

  3. April explains what tokenism is. Do you have other examples?

  4. What would it look like for your organization to do the work needed to create an environment in which People of Color can succeed in their future roles? 

  5. What do you think about the different components of Barbara Love’s liberatory consciousness model?

COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?

Let us know in the comments below!